Quotes about woman
page 5

Heinrich Heine photo

“Every woman is the gift of a world to me.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Ideas: The Book Le Grand (1826)

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“Generally, separation between husband and wife is due to womanly behavior; divorce takes place due to womanly weakness. The best course for a woman is to abide by the orders of her husband.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 4, Chapter 4, verse 3, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/4/4/3
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

W.B. Yeats photo

“Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?”

The Tower, II, st. 13
The Tower (1928)

Edvard Munch photo

“I thought I should make something – I felt it would be so easy – it would take form under my hands like magic.
Then people would see!
A strong naked arm – a tanned powerful neck a young woman rests her head on the arching chest.
She closes her eyes and listens with open and quivering lips to the words he whispers into her long flowing hair.
I should paint that image just as I saw it – but in the blue haze.
Those two at that moment, no longer merely themselves, but simply a link in the chain binding generation to generation.
People should understand the significance, the power of it. They should remove their hats like they do in church.
There should be no more pictures of interiors, of people reading and women knitting.
There would be pictures of real people who breathed, suffered, felt, loved.
I felt impelled – it would be easy. The flesh would have volume – the colours would be alive.
There was an interval. The music stopped. I was a little sad. I remembered how many times I had had similar thoughts – and that once I had finished the painting – they had simply shaken their heads and smiled.
Once again I found myself out on the Boulevard des Italiens.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

written in Saint Cloud, 1889
Quotes from his text: 'Saint Cloud Manifesto', Munch (1889): as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 120 -121
1880 - 1895

Clare Boothe Luce photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Anthony Trollope photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Barack Obama photo

“How does America find its way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be? Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn’t much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism—every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!” But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it’s been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It’s been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Knox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005)
2005

Françoise Sagan photo
Barack Obama photo

“A woman who is denied an education is denied equality.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Martha C. Nussbaum photo

“When I arrived at Harvard in 1969, my fellow first-year graduate students and I were taken up to the roof of the Widener Library by a well-known professor of classics. He told us how many Episcopal churches could be seen from that vantage point. As a Jew (in fact a convert from Episcopalian Christianity), I knew that my husband and I would have been forbidden to marry in Harvard's church, which had just refused to accept a Jewish wedding. As a woman I could not eat in the main dining room of the faculty club, even as a member's guest. Only a few years before, a woman would not have been able to use the undergraduate library. In 1972 I became the first female to hold the Junior Fellowship that relieved certain graduate students from teaching so that they could get on with their research. At that time I received a letter of congratulation from a prestigious classicist saying that it would be difficult to know what to call a female fellow, since "fellowess" was an awkward term. Perhaps the Greek language could solve the problem: since the masculine for "fellow" in Greek was hetairos, I could be called a hetaira. Hetaira, however, as I knew, is the ancient Greek word not for “fellowess” but for “courtesan.””

Martha C. Nussbaum (1947) American philosopher

[Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity, https://books.google.com/books?id=V7QrAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA6, 1 October 1998, Harvard University Press, 978-0-674-73546-0, 6–7]

Louis Pasteur photo

“The more I know, the more nearly is my faith that of the Breton peasant. Could I but know all I would have the faith of a Breton peasant woman.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

As quoted in "Louis Pasteur" in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)
As quoted in Letter to an Atheist (2007) by Michael Patrick Leahy, p. 61
His descendents, Louis-Pasteur Vallery-Radot, and Maurice Vallery-Radot disputed the authenticity of such statements. According to Maurice Vallery-Radot, Pasteur (1994), p. 378, the attributed assertion first appeared in the Semaine religieuse .... du diocèse de Versailles (6 October 1895), p. 153, shortly after the death of Pasteur.
Disputed
Variant: I have the faith of a Breton peasant and by the time I die I hope to have the faith of a Breton peasant's wife.

Sophia Loren photo

“A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

Quoted on Good Morning, America ABC TV (10 August 1979).

Françoise Sagan photo

“No one is more conventional than a woman who is falling out of love.”

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

Esaias Tegnér photo

“A woman's honor rests on manly love.”

Esaias Tegnér (1782–1846) Swedish poet, professor and bishop

Canto VIII.
Fridthjof's Saga (1820-1825)

Edith Stein photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Jerry Lewis photo

“A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.”

Jerry Lewis (1926–2017) American comedian, actor, film producer, writer and film director

Hey Laaaady: Jerry Lewis Isn't Laughing, CBS News, (2000) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hey-laaaady-jerry-lewis-isnt-laughing/

C.G. Jung photo
Indíra Gándhí photo

“To be liberated, woman must feel free to be herself, not in rivalry to man but in the context of her own capacity and her personality.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

"True Liberation Of Women" http://gos.sbc.edu/g/gandhi1.html, speech, inauguration of the All-India Women's Conference Building Complex in New Delhi, India (March 26, 1980). Published in Selected Speeches and Writings of Indira Gandhi, September 1972-March 1977 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1984, pp. 417-418).

Barack Obama photo
Cato the Elder photo
Brigham Young photo
J. M. Barrie photo
Thomas Paine photo

“Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [sic (actually the fifteenth)] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Louise Bourgeois photo
Barack Obama photo
Joanne K. Rowling photo
Jane Roberts photo
Tom Ford photo
Agatha Christie photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Alexander Smith photo

“The saddest thing that befalls a soul
Is when it loses faith in God and woman.”

Alexander Smith (1829–1867) Scottish poet and essayist

Scene 12.
A Life Drama and other Poems (1853)

Karl Marx photo
Federico Fellini photo

“It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

"Fidelity"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Karl Kraus photo

“Moral responsibility is what is lacking in a man when he demands it of a woman.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

Elizabeth I of England photo
Friedrich Schiller photo
Chien-Shiung Wu photo
Marcel Proust photo
José Saramago photo

“Then Jesus slowly turned to look at her and said, I have never been with a woman. Mary held his hands, This is how everyone has to begin, men who have never known a woman, women who have never known a man, until the day comes for the one who knows to teach the one who does not.”

Então Jesus voltou lentamente o rosto para ela e disse. Não conheço mulher. Maria segurou-lhe as mãos, Assim temos de começar todos, homens que não conheciam mulher, mulheres que não conheciam homem, um dia o que sabia ensinou, o que não sabia aprendeu.
Source: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), p. 235

Martin Luther photo

“If a woman becomes weary and at last dead from bearing, that matters not; let her only die from bearing, she is there to do it.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Sermon Von dem ehelichen Stande (1519), p. 41 — as quoted in The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of Essays and Lectures (1888) by Karl Pearson, "The Sex-Relations in Germany", p. 424
The quote actually comes from Von dem eelichen Leben (1522). It can be seen in an original edition here https://books.google.com/books?id=YGZcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP28, in a 19th century reissue here https://books.google.com/books?id=wJEKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA538, and in English translation (as " On the Estate of Marriage https://books.google.com/books?id=KFU0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA33") here https://books.google.com/books?id=KFU0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA74.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“In this regard, the word vikhyatam is very significant. A man is always famous for his aggression toward a beautiful woman, and such aggression is sometimes considered rape. Although rape is not legally allowed, it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 4, Chapter 25, verse 41, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/4/25/41
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Theodore Roosevelt photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“Lord Illingworth: Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.
Mrs. Allonby: Or the want of it in the man.”

Act I http://books.google.com/books?id=RHkWAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Women+have+become+too+brilliant+Nothing+spoils+a+romance+so+much+as+a+sense+of+humour+in+the+woman%22+%22or+the+want+of+it+in+the+man%22&pg=PA34#v=onepage
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Jean Jacques Rousseau photo

“As a man's conduct is controlled by public fact, so is her religion ruled by authority. The daughter should follow her mother's religion, the wife her husband's. Were that religion false, the docility which leads mother and daughter to submit to nature's laws would blot out the sin of error in the sight of Goddess. Unable to judge for themselves they should accept the judgment of father and husband as that of the church. While men unaided cannot deduce the rules of their faith, neither can they assign limits to that faith by the evidence of reason; they allow themselves to be driven hither and thither by all sorts of external influences, they are ever above or below the truth. Extreme in everything, they are either altogether reckless or altogether pious; you never find them able to combine virtue and piety. Their natural exaggeration is not wholly to blame; the ill-regulated control exercised over them by men is partly responsible. Loose morals bring religion into contempt; the terrors of remorse make it a tyrant; this is why women have always too much or too little religion. As a woman's religion is controlled by authority it is more important to show her plainly what to believe than to explain the reasons for belief; for faith attached to ideas half-understood is the main source of fanaticism, and faith demanded on behalf of what is absurd leads to madness or unbelief. Whether our catechisms tend to produce impiety rather than fanaticism I cannot say, but I do know that they lead to one or other. In the first place, when you teach religion to little girls never make it gloomy or tiresome, never make it a task or a duty, and therefore never give them anything to learn by heart, not even their prayers. Be content to say your own prayers regularly in their presence, but do not compel them to join you. Let their prayers be short, as Christ himself has taught us. Let them always be said with becoming reverence and respect; remember that if we ask the Almighty to give heed to our words, we should at least give heed to what we mean to say.”

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book V

Marilyn Monroe photo

“A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Attributed to Monroe in self-help books and on social media, this quotation is of unknown origin and date.
Misattributed

Saul Bellow photo
Mark Twain photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo

“The female defects – greed, hate, and delusion and other defilements – are greater than the male’s…You [women] should have such an intention…Because I wish to be freed from the impurities of the woman’s body, I will acquire the beautiful and fresh body of a man.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Saint Augustine as quoted by Dr Bettany Hughes Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11785181/Feminism-started-with-the-Buddha-and-Confucius-25-centuries-ago.html
Disputed

C.G. Jung photo
Abby Martin photo

“As a woman, I completely reject Hillary’s brand of bourgeois feminism because it leaves out millions of immigrant women, poor women, and the women under her bombs around the world.”

Abby Martin (1984) American journalist

TeleSUR, April 17, 2016 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PV_PLCC6jeI#t=1597

Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Kent Hovind photo
Edith Stein photo
Françoise Sagan photo

“A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.”

Russell Lynes (1910–1991) American art historian

"The Part-Time Lady," http://books.google.com/books?id=0qhKAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+lady+is+a+woman+who+makes+a+man+behave+like+a+gentleman%22&pg=PA104#v=onepage A Surfeit of Honey (1957)

C.G. Jung photo

“The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc..”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

"Two Essays in Analytical Psychology" In CW 7: P. 188 (1967)

Malala Yousafzai photo
Barack Obama photo

“Now that we're 18 days before the election, Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year. He told folks he was the ideal candidate for the Tea Party, now he's telling folks, "What? Who me?" He's forgetting what his own positions are. And he's betting that you will too. I mean, he's changing up so much and backtrackin' and sidesteppin'. We've gotta name this condition that he's going though. I think it's called Romnesia. That's what it's called. I think that's what he's goin' through. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do wanna go over some of the symptoms with you, because I wanna make sure nobody else catches it.You know, if you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia.If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia.If you say you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up in a primary debate and say that you'd be delighted to sign a law outlying — outlawing that right to choose in all cases — man, you definitely got Romnesia.Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year, "I'm gonna give a tax cut to the top 1%", and in a debate you say, "I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks", you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia.If you say that you're a champion of the coal industry when, while you were governor, you stood in front of a coal plant and said "This plant will kill you" —[audience: Romnesia! ] that's some Romnesia.And if you come down with a case of Romnesia and you can't seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the promises you've made over the six years you've been running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions. We can fix you up.. We've got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Campaign rally http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/19/remarks-president-campaign-event-fairfax-va, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia,
2012

Oscar Wilde photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
S. H. Raza photo
Ernest Belfort Bax photo
Marilyn Manson photo
James Hudson Taylor photo

“Some are jealous of being successors of the Apostles. I would rather be a successor of the Samaritan woman, who, while the Apostles went for meat and forgot souls, forgot her water pot in her zeal to spread the good tidings.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from His Writings and Addresses. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 69).

Arsène Houssaye photo

“Whoever embarks with a woman embarks with a storm; but they are themselves the safety boats.”

Arsène Houssaye (1814–1896) French writer

Source: James O'Donnell Bennett (1908) When Good Fellows Get Together, p. 147

Michelle Phillips photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Sukirti Kandpal photo

“My style icon is none other than Grace Kelly. She was not only classy but was also a fantastic woman who had a lot of grace.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On her favourite style icon http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/features/tv-actresses-pick-their-favourite-style-icons-337/

C.G. Jung photo
Lee Evans photo
Milan Kundera photo

“In the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.”

Pg 5
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part One: Lightness and Weight

Vera Brittain photo
Bob Saget photo

“This woman woke up to see me and John Stamos banging on her windows. She must have thought she died and went to sitcom hell.”

Bob Saget (1956) American stand-up comedian, actor and television host

Bob Saget: That Ain't Right (2007)

Friedrich Schiller photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Pope Francis photo
Christian Dior photo

“You can wear black at any time. You can wear it at any age. You may wear it for almost any occasion; a 'little black frock' is essential to a woman's wardrobe.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

Source: Nancy MacDonell Smith The Classic Ten: The True Story of the Little Black Dress and Nine Other Fashion Favorites http://books.google.co.in/books?id=hCap5dsIJiAC&pg=PT17, Penguin, 28 October 2003, p. 17

C.G. Jung photo

“For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the "spiritual" sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the "world and woman," i. e., the anima projected on to the world.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

"A Study in the Process of Individuation" (1934) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 559

Jennifer Beals photo
Stefan Zweig photo
Andrew Taylor Still photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We, the men of to-day and of the future, need many qualities if we are to do our work well. We need, first of all and most important of all, the qualities which stand at the base of individual, of family life, the fundamental and essential qualities—the homely, every-day, all-important virtues. If the average man will not work, if he has not in him the will and the power to be a good husband and father; if the average woman is not a good housewife, a good mother of many healthy children, then the state will topple, will go down, no matter what may be its brilliance of artistic development or material achievement. But these homely qualities are not enough. There must, in addition, be that power of organization, that power of working in common for a common end […]. Moreover, the things of the spirit are even more important than the things of the body. We can well do without the hard intolerance and arid intellectual barrenness of what was worst in the theological systems of the past, but there has never been greater need of a high and fine religious spirit than at the present time. So, while we can laugh good-humoredly at some of the pretensions of modern philosophy in its various branches, it would be worse than folly on our part to ignore our need of intellectual leadership. […] our debt to scientific men is incalculable, and our civilization of to-day would have reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes it if the work of the great masters of science during the past four centuries were now undone or forgotten. Never has philanthropy, humanitarianism, seen such development as now; and though we must all beware of the folly, and the viciousness no worse than folly, which marks the believer in the perfectibility of man when his heart runs away with his head, or when vanity usurps the place of conscience, yet we must remember also that it is only by working along the lines laid down by the philanthropists, by the lovers of mankind, that we can be sure of lifting our civilization to a higher and more permanent plane of well-being than was ever attained by any preceding civilization.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The World Movement (1910)

C.G. Jung photo
Subcomandante Marcos photo
Adunis photo

“New York is a woman
holding, according to history,
a rag called liberty with one hand
and strangling the earth with the other.”

Adunis (1930) Essayist, poet

"The Funeral of New York" (1971), from The Pages of Day and Night, trans. Samuel Hazo and Esther Allen (Northwestern University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-810-16081-1.

Nikola Tesla photo

“Woman's determined competition with man in the business world is breaking down some of the best traditions”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Mr. Tesla Explains Why He Will Never Marry (1924)

Barack Obama photo
Martin Luther photo

“Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 51, 128-129

Anne Frank photo
Babur photo
Jayne Mansfield photo

“A woman should be pink and cuddly for a man.”

Jayne Mansfield (1933–1967) American actress, singer, model

Here They Are Jayne Mansfield (1992)

Zig Ziglar photo

“A man or woman is seldom happy unless he or she is sustaining him or herself and making a contribution to others.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

See You at the Top (2000)

Katie McGrath photo